Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encouraged Church members to ask questions, so in relation to yesterday’s article in Deseret News LDS Church opposed to state senator’s medical marijuana bill, I have seven questions and hope somebody will provide some insights:

1. Referencing John 1:3, isn’t Jesus the creator of marijuana or didn’t Jesus help make marijuana?

2. If marijuana serves no purpose to help mankind then why did Jesus make it or take part in its creation?

4. Why do Mormons think they are justified in using the force of government to outlaw marijuana’s use?

5. Would Mormon leaders feel justified to personally afflict punishment on their neighbors for using marijuana or to personally imprison them? If not, then why support government force against marijuana users?

6. If the LDS Church thinks it is appropriate to oppose marijuana for medical uses, then do they also agree with the current federal government’s opposition to hemp, even though the government promoted its use in 1942 and allows today for it to be imported but not grown in the USA?

7. Have Church leaders not seen this 1942 Hemp for Victory video by Department of Agriculture?

Summary

I don’t want my descendents or the masses to use marijuana, nor do I wish to be a victim of marijuana smoke as I was as a teenager attending parties, or smell it in the air, and I don’t feel justified in telling adults they can’t grow and use it for their own personal use inside their homes.

The War on Drugs has been a major failure and gave rise to the police and regulatory states, massive increases in the number of prisoners, huge profits for the prison system and Federal Reserve shareholders, hundreds of billions of debt for the United States, CIA-controlled opium production in Afghanistan, and federal power to favor one drug lord over another, all at the expensive of freedom, liberty and inalienable rights.

My dad suffered a lot of pain when he was dying from cancer. I was told he ate marijuana in chocolate brownies. He may have even smoked it. The alternative was morphine, expensive pain killers made by the pharmaceutical industry and the side effects they produced.

I feel Church leaders from all faiths can do more to aggressively promote the defense of freedom, define and teach the terms liberty, freedom, free agency, natural rights and inalienable rights, and make it clear to their members when and where it is their duty to defend those rights for themselves and for others—things we all knew and defended in the pre-existence.

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Comments

From anonymous:

I don’t know all the details of each bill but I think it is more a rejection of the specific bill (given that there is no objection to the bill specified below).

“Hawkins said the LDS Church hasn’t raised any objections to Republican state Senator Evan Vickers’ Senate Bill 89, which would legalize manufactured cannabidiol products for a select number of patients.”

From my friend Mel:

I haven’t followed this too closely, but I understand that there are two bills regarding the medical use of Marijuana that are being debated. The Church opposes one and supports the other. The Church apparently is not opposed to its medical use, but feels that one of the bills is not a wise way to go about it. The press finds it easy to bash the Church but I want to know the whole story.